It was a bright sunny day at 16th and Mission streets, with no clouds in sight. The streets were buzzing as people made their morning commutes. Pedestrians gathered to wait for Muni or walked in and out of the BART station. At the northeast plaza, an SFPD Mobile Command Unit has been parked next to the bus stop since March. Groups of people, scattered, sit around the plaza and socialize.
A passing San Francisco Public Works employee asked, “What is it, day 900?” as he chuckled and walked toward a trash can. In actuality, the police vehicle only rolled in 71 days ago. Three men sitting in the shade, wearing surgical masks and fleece hoodies, huddle together. One of them placed a blue tall can inside a paper bag between his legs.
“The police will stop and ticket me for this beer before they say anything to someone doing drugs,” said the man in Spanish. His two friends joined in the conversation. They suggested that SFPD was targeting Latinx people. “The police do nothing to stop people who do drugs right in front of kids,” one of the men said.
At 10:04 a.m. at the southwest plaza, three SFMTA fare enforcement officers stood behind people as they boarded and unboarded from the 14 Mission bus. Pedestrians coming in and out of the 16th Street BART station passed by a man with no shoes or shirt, scratching at his calf with a pencil as he inspected his foot.
Adel Alghazali, 54, is the owner of Aramex restaurant at 2020 Mission St. Alghazali says he’s pleased with the work Mayor Daniel Lurie has done, and believes the SFPD mobile command unit’s presence has improved the area.
“The more police show up, the better. The bad guys will think twice. Before, when we called the police, they wouldn’t show up,” said Alghazali.
Although Alghalazi is pleased with the work Lurie has done so far, he also is expecting much more. “We want safer streets for the kids and families to walk around. … The summer is coming, and the streets smell really bad. We would appreciate it if they cleaned the streets.”
At 10:21 a.m. at 16th and Juilian streets, a parking control officer placed a ticket on a parked SUV. Several groups of people, some with dogs, made their way up the block toward 16th Street. Two men and one woman huddled near 15th and Julian streets. A man holding a glass pipe blew a cloud of white smoke out of his mouth. “God is good,” he said.
At 11 a.m. on Hoff Street, Public Works crews cleaned Kid Power Park. A couple of feet away, a San Francisco Sheriff’s deputy stopped to question a Black man. The man proceeded to urinate in front of the officer, onto the street, as he was being asked for his identification.
Minutes later, two more deputies arrived on the scene. They huddled around the man, who began to yell at them. A scuffle ensued, and the three deputies attempted to subdue the man, who kicked and yelled at them. Four police officers arrived in a hurry and joined the scrum. One of the deputies punched the man in the legs repeatedly and demanded he stop kicking.
The man, his face pushed against the pavement and glistening with sweat, breathed hard. He attempted to yell some more at the officers, but was out of breath. An officer asked if he needed an ambulance. They hoisted him up, with his cuffed hands behind his back, and placed him into a Sheriff’s Department vehicle.
The deputies thanked the police for their help. The man recovered his breath and resumed screaming from inside the vehicle.
A former homeless outreach worker, now homeless
At 10:10 a.m., Sequoia stood outside the Gubbio Project on Julian Avenue near 16th and Mission, sketching on a worn piece of cardboard. He drew the Golden Gate Bridge with a heart in the center. “It keeps me calm,” he said.
Sequoia, 29, has lived in San Francisco since youth and has been in and out of the juvenile and prison systems. He’s a former employee of the city’s Homeless Outreach Team (HOT). Now unhoused, he’s navigating a city where, he says, enforcement often replaces support.
“What happens by this aggressive policing policy is that it breaks apart our communities,” he said. “It started with three or more tents becoming their targets. … That broke apart communities and caused people to be alone using — and die.”
We walked a few blocks to 1855 15th Street. In the 30 minutes we stood there, three separate San Francisco Sheriff’s Department vehicles passed. The first stopped abruptly in the road before moving on. Sequoia clutched his chest and blinked back tears. “All it takes is for them to run my name,” he said.
He’s critical of the city’s approach to drug use and encampments. “What Lurie is doing, targeting groups of fentanyl users, effectively makes us isolated. That’s how people overdose.”
He recounted finding a man face-down outside his former office near a clinic in 2020. “He had died of what appeared to be fentanyl in his crack pipe. … the camps had been cleared three days before.”
Midway through the conversation, a woman approached and told us to leave the area. Sequoia, who said he had a warrant, kept calm. “I don’t want any trouble,” he said, gently gathering his things, including a foil pipe loaded with a mixture of meth and fentanyl he had planned to smoke.
We relocated to Dolores Park, sitting in the shade beside a patch of daisies. Sequoia spoke about the toll of constant displacement, stigma, and exhaustion. “I don’t get good sleep,” he said. “Every time I sleep, everything gets stolen — on the street, in housing, even in SROs. It wears you down.”
He was clear that he wasn’t asking for pity. Just patience. “If we’re given a safe place, we wouldn’t want to use in public. We want a place that’s respectful,” he said. “The criminalization of drug users kills us. It causes higher overdose rates. It forces us into the shadows.”
you should be targeting fenty users, they steal from Walgreens, Target and Safeway and sell at 16th and 24th at Mish to make their habit.
Keep it up SFPD!
Where the heck are the Park Rangers? Oh, let me guess, acting as Stewards and Ambassadors neglecting to act when criminal behavior is being committed in broad daylight or sitting back placing calls to SFPD to handle these matters because their department is utterly USELESS!!!
It’s much easier and safer for the Park Rangers to just give out tickets and citations to the young white people drinking and smoking cigarettes while sitting on their blankets in Dolores Park than to confront the unhinged, hostile, and dangerous with attitude drug users and fent smokers that won’t pay any of the fines they are given anyway.
Great article!
Lock him up.